Wrangled Page 13

  “I suppose you won’t be needing me soon,” Mrs. Crowley said.

  “Why would you say that?” Emma asked.

  “Your husband’s trip to Butte. I couldn’t help overhearing. Is it really possible his first wife is alive?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Mrs. Crowley shook her head as the teapot whistled. “I admit I did read a few things in the newspaper before I came here. I felt as if you and I had a lot in common actually. We are both haunted in a way by the past.”

  “That’s true,” Emma agreed as she poured a small pitcher of milk and prepared the cups.

  “What I can’t understand is why this woman would do what she’s been accused of.” She carefully filled Emma’s cup and slipped in a fresh tea bag. “She must enjoy making other people miserable,” she said as she watched the tea steep.

  “I feel sorry for her,” Emma said and Mrs. Crowley had to bite back a laugh. Of course Emma would.

  “How can you possibly say that?” she demanded as she slipped a tea bag into her own cup, then took both cups over to the table, making sure she didn’t accidentally mix them up as she saw the dust of a vehicle coming up the road in the distance.

  “She must be a very unhappy person,” Emma said.

  “Maybe she just couldn’t let go of her husband,” Mrs. Crowley said as she pulled out a chair and sat down across from her. “Isn’t it possible she loved him too much? That he was her life and she didn’t need anything or anyone else?”

  Emma took a sip of her tea and looked up in surprise. “You think she resented the children he adopted?”

  Mrs. Crowley shrugged and sipped at her tea, watching Emma over the rim of her cup.

  “I think she didn’t want him but she doesn’t want anyone else to have him,” Emma said, then took one of the lemon cookies off the plate on the table and dipped it into the tea. She took a bite, then said, “That is the most selfish of all love.”

  * * *

  EMMA DIDN’T LIKE THE TASTE of the tea and wondered how Mrs. Crowley could mess up even a simple cup of tea.

  The woman was no cook. If Emma’d had her way, she wouldn’t have let her in the kitchen. Every time Mrs. Crowley insisted on helping, nothing had turned out like it should have.

  Emma prided herself on her cooking, especially her baking. Fortunately, Mrs. Crowley hadn’t insisted on helping with the baking.

  She took another sip of the tea. It tasted bitter. She tried not to grimace with the woman watching her.

  “I think I need a little of that sweetener my future daughters-in-law insist on,” Emma said.

  Mrs. Crowley was being so nice, she rose quickly to get it.

  Emma used the diversion to dump some of the tea out in the plant on the windowsill. She would have poured out more but Mrs. Crowley was too quick for her.

  “Thank you,” she said as she took one of the packets, tore it open and poured it into her cup under Mrs. Crowley’s watchful eye.

  Emma hated sweetener, but she had no choice now but to drink the tea. Mrs. Crowley knew she didn’t take her tea with milk, but she added a little anyway, hoping it would make the brew go down easier.

  Mrs. Crowley was making an effort to be friends. Too late if the woman in Butte turned out to be Laura. Emma would feel badly about having to let Mrs. Crowley go. Well, not that badly. She would never know, though, where the housekeeper went in the middle of the night.

  Emma promised herself that she would give Mrs. Crowley a decent recommendation for her next job and make Hoyt give her a large severance package.

  Even as she thought it, Emma knew she probably wouldn’t have done that if the woman wasn’t disfigured. She wondered if Mrs. Crowley was often overly compensated by her employers not for her work but because of her injury. Emma supposed that, too, could have made the woman the way she was.

  Or at least had been. She’d been so pleasant today it was almost…spooky. Emma could feel Mrs. Crowley studying her. Now that she thought about it, many times since the housekeeper had arrived here she’d felt her studying her like a bug under a magnifying glass.

  Another benefit of her injury, Emma thought vaguely. No one dared stare at Mrs. Crowley, which made it easier for her to stare at everyone else.

  Emma put down her cup. She’d been forced to drink all but a little of it. She suddenly felt light-headed. She could barely keep her eyes open.

  * * *

  MRS. CROWLEY CONCENTRATED on her tea, letting Emma drink almost all of hers. A breeze stirred at the open kitchen window, bringing with it the smell of smoke. Hoyt was in Butte and by now all the Chisholm boys would be fighting the fire.

  But the wind also carried the scent of dust. As she listened, Mrs. Crowley heard the vehicle she’d seen down the road approaching. It was only a matter of minutes before it reached the ranch house.

  Mrs. Crowley glanced toward the window and the pickup that pulled into the yard. It was just a neighbor coming to refill the water tank in the back of his truck.

  She looked over at Emma again. There was still time.

  Emma was staring into her teacup as if reading her future in the small sprinkling of leaves at the bottom.

  All things considered, not much of a future, Mrs. Crowley thought.

  “I think Laura was scarred in ways none of us will ever understand,” she said. “Did you know that her father deserted her when she was six? He was her life. Her mother remarried, of course, after transforming herself into whatever that man wanted her to be. The marriages never lasted so she kept having to become someone new for someone else.”

  Emma looked up and blinked as if having a hard time focusing.

  “Laura’s mother cared more about the men who traipsed through the house in a steady flow than she ever did about her daughter,” Mrs. Crowley continued as she rose to take Emma’s cup.

  “You wouldn’t know what it’s like growing up feeling that you’re not enough, that your love isn’t valuable enough, that you’re not even enough for your own mother. But I think you can imagine what something like that can do to a person,” Mrs. Crowley said.

  * * *

  SOMETHING WAS WRONG. Emma had been trying to follow the conversation but Mrs. Crowley’s words weren’t making any sense.

  She stared across the table at the woman. Mrs. Crowley looked different this morning, but Emma couldn’t put her finger on what it was. She reached for a cookie, but hit the small pitcher of milk. Milk splashed onto the table.

  “Here, let me help you with that,” the housekeeper said, moving the pitcher out of her reach.

  “I’m not feeling well.” Her head was spinning and she could barely keep her eyes open.

  “You must have what I did earlier. Headache? Light-headedness? I was so tired I could barely stay awake.”

  Emma looked into the woman’s face and had a moment of clarity. “Did you put something in my tea?”

  Mrs. Crowley smiled. “It’s all right. I only gave you a very strong sedative. It will knock you out, but it won’t kill you. That comes later.”

  Emma tried to stand, but the housekeeper was on her before she could get out of the chair. She struggled to throw her off, but Mrs. Crowley was much stronger than she looked.

  Nor was she limping, Emma thought as the housekeeper half dragged her toward the pantry. She gave up fighting to free herself from the woman’s grip, realizing it was useless.

  She was too weak. But she still fought to stay awake. Dakota was on her way. If she called out—

  Emma opened her mouth, but only a low groan came out as the housekeeper dragged her into the pantry.

  Emma’s eyelids drooped and the last thing she heard as she lay on the floor was the hurried slamming of the pantry door. Then darkness.

  * * *

  MRS. CROWLEY LOOKED DOWN the road. No Dakota yet. She sat down, poured a little milk into her tea and idly stirred it with her spoon. It was dangerous, this game she was playing. She had let it go on too long. She’d been in this house since March. It w
as now June and she hadn’t accomplished what she’d come here to do.

  With a curse, she knew why it had taken her so long. Emma. The woman had intrigued her. Each day she’d relished watching her employer. Emma had an insatiable curiosity and a need to comfort. Mrs. Crowley smiled at the woman’s pitiful attempts to befriend her.

  The curiosity could have turned out to be a problem, though. While she was watching Emma, Emma had been spying on her. She chuckled to herself at Emma’s attempts to find out where she’d gone at night. Taking a sip of tea, she almost spilled it as she recalled Emma’s face when she’d caught her coming out of the cab of the pickup last night.

  Feeling good for the first time in a long time, Mrs. Crowley considered having one of Emma’s cookies. Normally she didn’t allow herself the pleasure of sweets. She had just taken a bite when she heard the sound of a vehicle. Looking out the kitchen window, she saw the driver of the pickup park in front of the house and climb from behind the wheel.

  Dakota Lansing. Before the other night, she hadn’t seen her since she was a cute little two-year-old, Clay Lansing’s pride and joy.

  She watched the now beautiful young woman head for the front door and felt a stab of remorse. Clay Lansing never knew it, but she could have fallen for him all those years ago. There was something so broken about him after his wife died. She’d been drawn to his pain and thrown caution to the wind.

  She would have left Hoyt for Clay if it hadn’t been for Dakota. It was ironic. She hadn’t wanted a child, and in her reckless abandon had become pregnant with one.

  She listened, but no sound came from inside the pantry. Smiling, she went to answer the knock at the door.

  * * *

  THE FIRE HAD RACED ACROSS the prairie, fueled by the wind and the tall grasses, and left charred, black ground. Smoke still billowed up along the horizon and could be seen for miles, but the flames had been knocked down.

  This was the wrong time of the year for grass fires. Unfortunately an early spring, hot temperatures and abundant grass had kept the blaze going.

  When Zane arrived he found his brothers, along with neighbors who had seen the smoke and come to help. They’d managed to get the fire contained and were now busy dousing any grass and brush still smoking.

  Another truck pulled in equipped with a water tank in the bed. Zane saw that his brothers had almost emptied their tanks and would need to make a run back to the ranch to refill soon unless they got the fire completely out with this last tank of water.

  Zane backed up his pickup and jumped out to grab the hose from the back and turn on the faucet of the water tank. The spray felt cold and blew back in his face as he began to douse the grass along the edge of where the fire had burned. Down the way, more neighbors were working along with several small community volunteer fire department crews.

  Zane was thankful that his brothers were already winning the battle against the blaze. What he wanted to know now was how it could have started out here in the middle of nowhere—especially after a rain last night. Unless it had been started by a lightning strike and taken this long to get going.

  After emptying the tank in the back of the truck, Zane moved across the blackened ground to the spot where the blaze appeared to have started. He hadn’t gone far when he saw the containers of accelerant and the boot prints in the soft earth.

  Hunkering down, he studied the track and then, on an impulse, looked to the horizon where the foothills rose in small clusters of pines. Zane caught a flash of light in the pines along the foothills not a half mile away.

  Binoculars, he thought. The arsonist is watching to see how much damage he’s caused.

  A moment later Zane realized the arsonist had seen him and knew he’d been spotted. A pickup roared out of the trees in the distance. The driver was making a run for it.

  Swearing, Zane sprinted for one of the ranch trucks. The bastard wasn’t getting away.

  As he neared the truck, Zane called to his brothers. “The man who started the fire. I saw him watching us from the trees. He’s taking off.”

  Zane jumped behind the wheel. His brother Marshall climbed into the passenger side as the truck engine roared to life, and Zane swung it around and headed for the county road to cut the man off.

  Dust billowed up behind them as they raced across the pasture. Zane could see the blue pickup’s driver careening down the road, hoping to escape before Zane could catch him.

  “Can’t this pickup go any faster?” Marshall joked, hanging on as the truck bounced over the ruts, fishtailing onto the road.

  For a moment it looked as if the blue pickup would beat them to the spot where the two roads joined.

  Zane feared that if the driver of the blue truck got there first, he might be able to outrun them. After all, his truck didn’t have a water tank in the back.

  He pushed the pickup harder, keeping his eye on the road as he and the other driver raced toward the point where the two roads intersected—and the trucks were about to meet, neither driver letting up off the gas.

  Marshall was on the phone to the sheriff when he wasn’t hanging on to keep from being bounced all over the cab.

  “I suppose you have a plan,” Marshall said, sounding a little anxious. “He doesn’t look like he’s going to give an inch.”

  Zane didn’t answer. His mind was racing. Why start a grass fire? What had been the point?

  Suddenly he knew. “Call our brothers,” he cried. “Tell them to hightail it to the house. The fire was a diversion!”

  The truck was almost to the intersection and so was Zane.

  Marshall made the call and then braced himself for the collision. He must have seen that his brother wasn’t slowing down—and neither was the driver of the other pickup.

  * * *

  MRS. CROWLEY ANSWERED the front door on the second knock. She loved to see the expressions of people when they first saw her. Shock, then horror, then a nervous twitch of the eyes as their gazes slid away.

  The young woman was even more striking close-up. She couldn’t help but think of Clay’s last words before his heart attack.

  “Don’t hurt my daughters.” He’d grabbed her arm. “Laura, swear to me you won’t hurt my daughters.”

  Fortunately he’d died before she had to answer.

  “Is Emma here?” Dakota asked.

  “She’s lying down right now, but please come in. She told me to take care of you until she wakes up.”

  “I don’t want to be a bother,” Dakota said.

  “Don’t be silly,” Mrs. Crowley said as she stepped aside to let Dakota into the house. “You’re no bother. Come on back to the kitchen.” She closed the door behind them, surreptitiously locking it. “Emma baked lemon cookies. She insisted you try one with a cup of my tea while you’re waiting.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Hoyt Chisholm stood in the Butte Police Department, shaking inside with both anger and fear. An officer had brought him into a small room and told him to wait, and that he would bring the prisoner in.

  Glancing at the chair on the other side of the table, Hoyt was too anxious to sit. He kept reliving that day on Fort Peck Reservoir. Huge waves had rocked the boat as the wind gathered speed and churned up the water from miles down the lake. He’d never seen waves like that and wanted to turn back but Laura had insisted they keep going.

  Nor would she wear a life jacket even though she’d told him she couldn’t swim. He hadn’t wanted the day to turn into one of their horrible fights, so he hadn’t made her put the life jacket on. For all these years, he’d regretted that maybe the most.

  If she’d been wearing a life jacket, she wouldn’t have drowned. Or been able to escape and perpetrate the cruel and inhuman hoax she’d pulled on him.

  If she was really alive.

  He knew she had to be. Everyone else believed it now, even Sheriff McCall Crawford. Aggie Wells had believed it. Emma, too.

  Was the reason he didn’t want to believe it because it would mean he’d not on
ly fallen in love with a monster, but he’d married her?

  He thought of how he’d nearly drowned diving into the water looking for Laura. Shuddering, he remembered the cold darkness of the water and felt the horror that Laura was down there fighting for her life and he had let her die.

  In a body of water as large as Fort Peck, no one had been surprised that her body was never found.

  He closed his eyes, hating that he’d married so quickly after her death. By then the adoption had gone through and he had six sons to care for. Tasha had loved them all so and he’d wanted so badly for the boys not to have to grow up without a mother.

  Tasha’s horseback-riding accident had been ruled just that, an accident. But he knew that if Laura was alive, she’d killed her. Just as she’d killed the next woman who’d come into his life, Krystal.

  Laura had tried to frame him for Krystal’s murder—just as she was now trying to frame his son. That thought sent a tidal wave of rage roaring through him.

  He opened his eyes, fury trumping his terror at coming face-to-face with his dead wife. Whatever Laura’s problem, it was with him. She’d taken it out on his wives and now one of his sons. He would stop her. If he had to do it with his bare hands.

  He heard footfalls outside the room. The echo grew louder and he braced himself. Was a man ever ready for something like this? The footfalls stopped outside the door. The knob turned, the door swung open and two police officers escorted a dark-haired woman into the room.

  She had her head down, but he recognized something familiar in the way she moved. She was the right height, the right body type and even appeared to be close to the age Laura would be now.

  One of the police officers motioned for Hoyt to move behind the table.

  He stumbled into the chair, gripping the sides as the other officer brought the woman all the way into the room and instructed her to sit down.

  She did as she was told.

  He watched her slowly lift her head. Her gaze met his.

  Hoyt flinched as he looked into the familiar bright blue of her eyes. A sound came out of him, half cry, half curse. “Laura.”